Peter, I think for a long time I have misunderstood your position on volume measurements and making dough by feel. I read your reply to Marco's statements and thought it important to copy and repost here.

Marco,

I appreciate and respect your comments and have noted your approach on this matter from my visits to the Italian pizza forum. However, my advice is intended for those home pizza makers who either have little experience with making pizza doughs or who have been having problems making their doughs. It is also to get a better handle on the hydration percent, while acknowledging the need to occasionally make midcourse corrections as the dough making process proceeds. You are an expert who has learned from long experience how to make a quality dough without having to weigh things. I saw the same thing with Dom DeMarco at DiFara's. He has been making dough for so long that he doesn't have to weigh anything. He uses volume measurements, and rough ones at that. I have seen the same thing from other pizza operators who, like Dom DeMarco, have making doughs for years. My emphasis has been on helping the home pizza maker who has not yet reached expert status. The use of "recipes" or formulas on this thread is simply a mechanism to allow users to have flexibility and variety in the Lehmann doughs they make, mainly in being able to make any size Lehmann pizza they want while retaining the classic NY crust characteristics. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find that many of our members have made enough Lehmann doughs that they no longer have to weigh or measure out things and can do it by "feel", just as you do with your Neapolitan style doughs.

Peter

I think one of the biggest challenges for teachers of any discipline is to remember what it was like to be students themselves. To remember the challenges, fustrations, and joys of learning. I think what makes a good teacher is someone who can explain things in a way that is easy to digest for the beginner and makes it fun to learn and encourages the student to seek out new learning opportunities. It's really hard to learn if you are chided too often.

I like and advocate the balanced approach. Start with the recipes and lean towards experimentation to gain a deeper understanding. If I can make great pizza by recipe - I'm happy. If I can learn to make dough by feel, even better. If I can not, I still get to eat great pizza.

It goes without saying that the dough calculating tools are one of the best assets of the forum.

I cant believe the dough held up to 20 minutes of mixing in the bosch! Your pies look great, but I think you are going to end up with a shorter mix. I consider 12 minutes a long mix, and usually dont ever get over 10 even with very wet doughs, but I am glad you are doing these experiments. Keep 'm coming!

It may be that flour millers in the U.S. have W values for their flours but, if so, they don't publish them. It seems to be a European thing.

That's exactly correct. I have been speaking to several Canadian mills in search of a possible substitute for Caputo Rosso. My conversations have all been with the people in the labs who actually understand the W value. They basically don't publish the W value because the public don't really know/care what it means & as Peter mentioned is in fact a European thing. What surprised me is that Caputo Rosso in milled from soft wheat. When I think of a strong flour I automatically assume hard spring wheat, which is apparently not the case. I have also come to learn that according to the Canadian FDA all flour milled in Canada must contain additives such as Niacin, Riboflavin, etc. I believe, Caputo Rosso is completely additive free. If I am mistaken & someone knows otherwise please correct me. Will these additives cause the dough to react differently than an additive free flour? There is one more flour that I'm going to look into which is unbleached & milled from Ontario soft wheat. If the W factor is in the W280-300 range then it looks like it will be my best choice for now. I am going to try to convince my supplier to bring in some Caputo Rosso for me.

Wow, at this point W values and the study of the different types of wheat are still way beyond me.

Wanted to repeat the Small batch test #1 this morning and also conduct a new experiment on short vs long knead times in the Bosch.

The formula I used today is a typical NY formula, but I used AP flour instead BF. I won't be baking with this flour and made it for another experiment this afternoon.

Flour 100% APWater 68%Salt 2%Cake Yeast 0.1%Oil 2%

Repeating Test #1 - Small batch testDuring the initial small batch test, I notice that the small batch adapter seem to hinder mixing. That is, it would help trap the small batch of dough along the center column. By removing it, the dough was free to move about and into the mixing arms path. For today's experiment, I started out with a 300gm batch without the small batch adapter and noted that it wasn't really mixing. I then added another 100gm and noted that the doughball was finally getting moved around the bowl and being mixed.

To ensure that it was being mixed properly and evenly, I added a bit of green food coloring. I took pictures after 1 and 3 mins of mixing and the food coloring seem to be evenly dispersed.

I would conclude that ~400gm is the minimal dough weight you can mix in the BUP. At this point I can not recommend the small batch adapter sold by Breadtopia for $6. It seems to not help but actually hinder the mixing of small batches.

In the U.S., you can get flour, even white flour, with whatever you want in it. However, the most common additions to flour in the U.S. are a vitamin package, iron, enzymes, potassium bromate, and ascorbic acid (Vitamin C). There are also bleaching agents used to bleach some flours but they are not usually identified by chemical name in the list of flour ingredients. However, the flour will usually be indicated as being bleached in the ingredients list and in the spec sheets as well.

The vitamin package is essentially composed of B vitamins, which are added to replace B vitamins lost during milling. In 1997, folic acid, which is also a B vitamin, was added to most vitamin packages when it was discovered that folic acid can prevent infant neural tube defects. It is also considered a heart healthy vitamin. The enzyme additive is usually diastatic barley malt (malted barley flour) but there are also fungal and bacterial forms. The active enzymes are amylase enzymes that work on damaged starch in the flour to release the natural sugars from the flour. U.S. flours are considerably more prone to starch damage, which usually occurs during milling but which can also be higher if grains are damaged (e.g., sprout damage). Consequently, there is more damaged starch for the amylase enzymes to work on. European flours usually have less damaged starch than U.S. flours. Since enzymes are usually not added to European flours, there is usually less sugar released from the damaged starch in those flours, and it can take a while for the enzymes naturally present in the flour to do their work.

Vitamin C is added to some flours because it acts as an oxidizing agent (by virtue of acting with atmospheric oxygen), which makes it easier to form the gluten network (by preventing the gluten bonds from breaking down) during kneading of the dough. An example of a flour with ascorbic acid added is GM's Superlative flour, at http://www.gmiflour.com/gmflour/Flour_SpecSheet/Superlative53521(West).doc.

Iron is added to flours to increase its bioavailability, usually for purposes of preventing iron deficiency anemia. The potassium bromate is added to flour (usually certain higher protein flours) for a variety of purposes, which have been discussed on several occasions elsewhere on this forum.

As might be expected, apart from protein/gluten considerations, most of the additives to flours are not likely to be implicated in the kneading process. However, I believe that bromates and Vitamin C in flours are likely to have an effect on the machine kneading process, particularly the potassium bromate.

Before 00 flours became available at the retail level in the U.S., recipe authors, including Pamela Sheldon Johns (in her book Pizza Napoletana! and in several magazine articles), came up with several types of flour blends that were intended to simulate the 00 flours. The blends were usually a combination of our domestic all-purpose flour and cake flour or pastry flour. Peter Reinhart, in his book American Pie suggested using all-purpose flour as a substitute for 00 flour. I don't think I have ever seen bread flour mentioned as a substitute for 00 flour although I have seen blends of bread flour and cake flour or pastry flour as analogs of the 00 flours.

It may be that flour millers in the U.S. have W values for their flours but, if so, they don't publish them. It seems to be a European thing.

I haven't tried it but there may be a way of using the Mixed Mass Percentage Calculator at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ to come up with a domestic blend of flours with the same protein content of the Caputo 00 flour but the nature and quality of the gluten formation might still be different.

I believe you are correct on the characterization of the way that the Caputo 00 flour behaves and performs. However, many people knead Caputo doughs too long because they do not know that the long knead times specified by the VPN are based on using Italian mixers, which are gentle, not planetary mixers.

Peter

Hello Pizza-Pete this is interesting to me,I have a spiral mixer, univex 20 qt., and mix Caputo 00 blue bag, I mix the pizza dough until it reaches a good window pane,it usually takes about 25-30 min. is that too much? got better ( softer fluffier ) results when mixed by hand in past, but I've heard that a window pane is to be reached, for a better elasticity,,,,,,,,When making focaccia I use 5 roses and hydrate 90% and use the paddle to mix at high speed for 20 -30 min to reach a very good elasticity and produce a good airy and fluffy results, different flour??? ,,,,,Am I mixing Caputo 00 too long with this type of mixer. Thanks

Hello Pizza-Pete this is interesting to me,I have a spiral mixer, univex 20 qt., and mix Caputo 00 blue bag, I mix the pizza dough until it reaches a good window pane,it usually takes about 25-30 min. is that too much? got better ( softer fluffier ) results when mixed by hand in past, but I've heard that a window pane is to be reached, for a better elasticity,,,,,,,,When making focaccia I use 5 roses and hydrate 90% and use the paddle to mix at high speed for 20 -30 min to reach a very good elasticity and produce a good airy and fluffy results, different flour??? ,,,,,Am I mixing Caputo 00 too long with this type of mixer. Thanks

Phil

Hey Phil,Your timing couldn't be better. I just did a quick 3 stage video on mixing. I typically go about 10 minutes; 4 minutes where I slowly mix in the flour & then let it go for 6 minutes. Today I did something different; 10 minutes to incorporate the flour and then an additional 10 minutes for a total of 20 minutes. I'll post the video as soon as it's finished uploading.

For the 2nd part of my experiment this morning, I wanted to follow up on post #23. To mix 2 batches of dough, one at 5min and one at 25m. For this experiment, I will be using the green dough I mixed up earlier in post #32. The total batch size is around 900gm of dough. This 900gm doughball was mixed for about 5 min on speed 1. I then portioned off a piece of about 200gm to set aside and let rest for 30m with a window pane test to follow.

I proceeded to mix the rest of the batch on speed 1 for another 20min with a few short stops to push the dough around manually and scrap up an bits that aren't being mix. I also let this batch rest for 30min post knead and did the window pane test as well.

After both mixes, I noted that the dough felt very wet and sticky. I mentally noted that this dough is a low protein AP flour, relatively high hydration at 68%, and also contains 2% oil. After doing the test, I did feel that these factors may have skewed the results a bit and that a better dough for this experiment would perhaps be a lower hydrated BF without the oil. I only used this dough b/c I had it on hand and that I made it specifically for a different experiment this afternoon.

The 25min kneaded dough felt a bit stronger after the mix, but after a 30m rest period I did not note an appreciable difference in the way the 2 doughs window paned. I would conclude that when using a relatively high hydration low protein flour with oil, that the extended mix time did not affect the dough much either postively or negatively. It is likely that a bit more gluten was developed with the extended mix times but it was not appreciable from how both doughs felt.

I will repeat this test at a later date using a more appropriate formula and baking up the resulting pies to show if the differences of mixing times on gluten development.

Hello Pizza-Pete this is interesting to me,I have a spiral mixer, univex 20 qt., and mix Caputo 00 blue bag, I mix the pizza dough until it reaches a good window pane,it usually takes about 25-30 min. is that too much? got better ( softer fluffier ) results when mixed by hand in past, but I've heard that a window pane is to be reached, for a better elasticity,,,,,,,,When making focaccia I use 5 roses and hydrate 90% and use the paddle to mix at high speed for 20 -30 min to reach a very good elasticity and produce a good airy and fluffy results, different flour??? ,,,,,Am I mixing Caputo 00 too long with this type of mixer. Thanks

That's exactly correct. I have been speaking to several Canadian mills in search of a possible substitute for Caputo Rosso. My conversations have all been with the people in the labs who actually understand the W value. They basically don't publish the W value because the public don't really know/care what it means & as Peter mentioned is in fact a European thing. What surprised me is that Caputo Rosso in milled from soft wheat. When I think of a strong flour I automatically assume hard spring wheat, which is apparently not the case. I have also come to learn that according to the Canadian FDA all flour milled in Canada must contain additives such as Niacin, Riboflavin, etc. I believe, Caputo Rosso is completely additive free. If I am mistaken & someone knows otherwise please correct me. Will these additives cause the dough to react differently than an additive free flour? There is one more flour that I'm going to look into which is unbleached & milled from Ontario soft wheat. If the W factor is in the W280-300 range then it looks like it will be my best choice for now. I am going to try to convince my supplier to bring in some Caputo Rosso for me.

Matt

Matt,

I know you understand the "W" value concept but for the members here who don't, this link might explain the entire thing a bit better:

Leading up to the time I purchased a Bosch Universal mixer, I searched for info regarding small batches. One dealer I spoke to told me about the small batch adapter. There was no info I could find pro or con that seemed reliable, so I decided to buy it. When the machine arrived I assembled it with the adapter since my doughs usually weigh 430-880 grams. I did not try the machine without it. The adapter made sense to me since it has two flanges to "catch" the dough which I thought would increase the kneading efficiency.

In an earlier post on this thread, Chau mentioned that the small batch adapter is useless. I thought he was inhaling too much laughing gas. So I decided to do my own test comparing a dough ball weighing 435 g (HG,60%,salt,IDY) with the adapter and a second without it. I took photos at one minute intervals to document my impending triumph. Well it didn't happen !!! In a nut shell without the adapter the dough came together by 3 minutes and I thought it was finished by 5 minutes. With the adapter the dough wasn't "ready" until 9 minutes into the kneading.

Bobino, thank you for doing the test and confirming my results. I have the best of intentions but I'm not always scientific and exacting in my approach or methods.

I was surprise to discover that the small batch adapter was in fact counter productive. It prevents the BUP from mixing a small batch effectively. And it does this really well by trapping the dough at the center shaft preventing it from making contact with the mixing arms. Go figure...

It may also be possible to mix a smaller batch than 400gm in the BUP. I found that at 300gm, the doughball was just small enough to wrap itself around the center shaft and didn't have enough volume beyond that to make contact with the mixing arms. At 400gm, the mixing arms caught the dough and was able to knead it.

Bobino, feel free to help me out anytime and post up some experiments. I'm sure we'd all love to hear another perspective.

Great find Chau... you and your experiments. I know you got the gizmo as well and I know you said it probably didn't work either. But have you tried a bigger batch where the dough would have a chance of climbing into the unit to see if the gizmo stops it? I would really like to see your finding on that outcome if possible. I promise this isn't some plot to make you fat .

David, the ineffectiveness of the creeper gizmo was related to me by another member who found it ineffective. The largest batch I have mixed so far is ~950gm of dough and it didn't seem to creep up the center shaft. Hopefully sooner than later, I will mix up a 1500gm batch or so to see if it does.

Looking at the dough creeper gizmo, it is made of a flexible plastic. I can visually dough coming up the column and just pushing it aside. The design may be sound but the materials they use don't appear to be. If it was made from a much more stiff plastic or even metal, I bet it would work fine.

If someone has the tools, know how, and interest in replicating this piece using SS, I would be more than happy to put it to the test.

The reason I asked is when making dough in the DLX and using the roller attachment. I have to stand there with a spatula against the roller so dough doesn't climb up, kind of like the gizmo thing. I can see what you are saying though about it being cheap plastic.

JT, in my experience the dough does not tend to ride to far up the center shaft unless it it a very wet dough, and can be a good indicator of you hydration. Doughs around 60+- % are fine, and never really get up to that part of the shaft. -marc

The reason I asked is when making dough in the DLX and using the roller attachment. I have to stand there with a spatula against the roller so dough doesn't climb up, kind of like the gizmo thing. I can see what you are saying though about it being cheap plastic.

Lock in the roller about 1 inch from the bowl & you should be okay. You'll have to adjust it in or out depending on the size of your batches. Do not leave it tight against the bowl.